Posted on 05/26/2016 6:32:09 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Charles Barkley is walking entertainment and the brilliant Inside the NBA would not be the same without him and his off-the-cuff opinions (which is a great thing in sports talk, not so much with national policy).
But he remains the leader of the annoying #getoffmylawn crew of older players who don’t like today’s game.
Barkley was on the Bickley and Marotta on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM last week and went off again on the state of the game.
“People think us old guys hate when we talk about it. It has nothing to do with the Warriors’ greatness, LeBron’s greatness. But I’ve never seen the NBA as bad as it is, and I’ve been saying it the last three or four years. We’ve got too many young players coming out of college that don’t know how to play. It’s frustrating for me because I want to see competitive basketball.
“We took a survey on our crew … How many actual NBA teams would you buy season tickets for?” he added. “Four in the west and Cleveland obviously in the east. That’s not good for our league.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nba.nbcsports.com ...
...haven’t watched the NBA since da Bulls had their run...
A while ago he was a conservative who contemplated running for AL Governor. Now he's just another pro-BLM hack.
The NBA has went down the drain since Jordan retired and is even less prestigious than the NHL. The time has come for an alternative league to form that focuses on fielding teams from the heartland of America.
NBA,NFL, MLB - they can all disappear.
Some people work extremely hard to master their craft, and as a result, they achieve truly great things.
Other people, however, are born knowing that are already really, really great — so they “don’t need to work hard”.
Thug ball.
And they take 3-5 steps every time someone drives to the hoop.
We used to call that traveling.
Went to see a game two months ago. Spent a lot of time watching the antics of the mascot and the stuff on the jumbotron. The style of play in the league is not attention-grabbing.
I would change the rules of a new professional basketball league. When you foul for the third time, you should be in a penalty box. I think it will improve the flow of the game. Too many fouls and timeouts is disturbing the flow of the game.
1. Set up a true minor league. The NBA has their "developmental" league- it's nothing but a repository to pick a player or two for a 10-day contract.
2. Make the players stay in school 3 years, like they do in football and baseball. It'll give players the time to develop their skills.
I just simply dont have time to watch any sports.
Love the NBA playoffs.
Particularly as a Cavs fan from a city that hasn’t won a championship in my lifetime (last title was ‘64 Browns pre-Super Bowl).
I’m rather old, and while reasonably strong for my age I couldn’t even bear to watch HS basketball. Neither of my kids played (6’3 and 6’5). One was football/baseball the other pure baseball. Most days I can beat them and I’m only 6’0-1/2. I like to say 6’1 but that’s just in shoes. They are 19 and 21 and often could outplay peers who played basketball.
The problem is the emphasis on playing, playing, playing. It should be noted that Dell Curry kept Steph off of the AAU circuit which is one reason he was only recruited to a lower tier D1 school (Davidson). However I am guessing Mr. Curry had his son working on his ball handling. I don’t think it’s any mistake the two best players on the Warriors are sons of NBA players.
Like the NFL there can be at times an over-emphasis on athleticism. How often do we see the freak combine athlete, not pan-out in the NFL. However GMs are more likely to take the better athlete because they feel that player will be coached up, as opposed to taking the guy who was just a great college player.
Sometimes taking “athlete” over “college production” works out, sometimes it doesn’t. In the NBA you are seeing the same situation as the NFL. Athletes with a 41-inch vertical shooting up the draft charts despite zero evidence the guy can shoot the basketball, box out correctly, rotate on defense etc.
I haven’t watched much NBA for years. But it seems to me if the standard is what era could beat the other era, it depends on what era’s rules are going to be played under.
But I think the best shooting teams of that older era might be able to hang with the best teams of this era, because they would be shooting without being mauled for once. If the old era’s rules would be used, there isn’t a present era team that could hang with them.
But if the standard is entertainment, I don’t know. Uncontested dunks and shooting ups offense, and the casual fan has always thought scoring = entertainment. All the sports push to make it easier to score for this reason. Folks who actually love the game usually like the defensive side of things much more, and find entertainment from the skill of guarding someone, or keeping someone from scoring. Baseball is the best at that, because the defense has control of the ball. Most other ones look like some guys mauling the ones trying to be entertaining to more casual fans. And look how many times they changed baseball, and yet we are in a low run scoring era in MLB because of relief pitching and shifts.
Freegards
I think the three-point shot ruined the game.
One of the first things id do raise the basket 18 inches
Lots of flash. Not so much basketball. The question of flash vs standard basketball was never so obvious than when the Jazz trounced the Lakers again and again. Apparently the NBA decided they want all flash. Now they got it.
But I’ve never seen worse officiating than the NBA in the last few years.
A lot of people say that, what are your reasons? I never watched NBA without it.
Freegards
Basketball is the only sport which gets less exciting as the level of competition goes up. High school is best. College is OK. NBA is ho-hum.
I would go to several of their games a year back in ‘85-87.
They were not broken up. They were just plain ole broken.
‘86 was a great year in Boston Sports. I recall one day going to Fenway and watch Clemons in the afternoon in April, then going to the Celtics that night.
Those were special days in Boston.
They turned a perfectly good game into a circus.
You can build an all star team and you still aren’t beating the 71 Lakers or 96 Bulls. If any of today’s players went into the paint back in the 70’s-80’s they would be destroyed. I think it was Bill Russell who said if Jordan ever tried to do what he does against him, Russell would level him.
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